#shockingly; this one is also not 5 sentences 🤣🤭

[singsweetmelodies]

Piarles + church ⛪️

digging through my inbox again for another one of my 5-sentence fic prompts from a year ago, because earlier tonight, i wrote this piarles drabble, and then Tia said:

well, my darling friend, my most favourite enabler and idea-giver: this isn't quite 25 chapters, but i couldn't resist. love you SO MUCH!! and here you go - the "after" section you requested 🤭❤️💙

Charles takes his first step into the church, and his breath catches. He might not be religious in any way, but he cannot deny that there is something about this place.

The inside of the church is lit up with a light that feels golden, spilling in through the door behind him and transforming, somehow, when it enters the church. Tall, graceful marble pillars stretch up to the domed roof, their fastenings etched with intricate gold carvings which catch and reflect the ethereal light.

In front of Charles stretches a long, marble-floored aisle with rows and rows of wooden pews on either side. The people sitting in those pews - all of Charles and Pierre's closest loved ones - seem touched by some kind of radiance, alight and glowing with happiness and love.

And at the end of the aisle... at the end of the aisle is the altar; a beautiful, imposing thing with its lighted candles and carved marble sanctuary and red, red cloth - but Charles is really only interested in the man who stands before it.

Pierre. Pierre, his best friend, his soulmate, and the love of his life.

Pierre, who is wearing a black-and-white suit with a blue tie the same colour as his eyes (and the same colour as Charles' soulmark.) Pierre, whose jaw drops when he sees Charles - and the altar is far away from the door, yes, but not so far that Charles can't see the way that Pierre swallows, hard, before his face splits into the most beautiful smile Charles has ever seen.

I love you so much, he thinks, which has always been his instinctive reaction to Pierre smiling. But it feels like it means more, today. It means everything.

Charles starts walking down the aisle, moving before he's even really processed that he's doing it, and with every step he takes, the soulmark on his chest burns a little warmer.

Charles has wanted this since he was seven years old, and he asked his Maman what her wedding ring was, and she smiled and said, "When you love someone so much that God paints their colour on your body, that's when you get one of these."

Then, when Charles was old enough to understand a little better, and begin yearning for the one person he thought he'd never get to have, he realised he'd probably never get to wear a wedding ring. Because if he wasn't going to marry Pierre, then he knew deep-down that he wouldn't marry anyone. Nobody except Pierre could ever be his soulmate.

But somehow, impossibly, the universe smiled on him, and agreed: nobody except Pierre could ever be his soulmate. Somehow, impossibly, Charles gets to have this.

In the next breath, Charles reaches the altar, and Pierre smiles again. It's softer this time, tender and intimate and full of so much love, and Charles knows it's meant just for him - not for the priest, or for the numerous cameras, or for any of the people gathered. Just for Charles. "Ready, my love?" he asks.

And Charles smiles back, slipping his hand into Pierre's, and he's never meant it more when he says, "Ready."